The Greater 2010s… The Obama Era… is finally, FINALLY, in the rear view mirror. As an elder millennial, I had the fortune to be exposed as a child to just how nice the United States could be in the 1990s. How well things functioned. That great cultural production could be taken for granted… We survived Y2K… but no one was looking out for what could come next.
9/11. Neocons purging anyone right leaning who dared to disagree with the latest, pointless war. Making real estate sales politically correct to the point it crashed the economy, cutting the legs out of a generational cohort just as they were entering their early career years. And then, finally, Obama. Hope! Change! Let’s make the country safe for woke neoliberalism, and while we’re at it, let’s neutralize the populist left by corralling them into a circular firing squad over never satiable identity politics and grievance. The Overton Window suddenly narrowed, bordered by razor wire quick to cut the heads off of anyone straying too close to the edge.
A cultural neutron bomb went off. Admittedly, some Millennials thrived. The kinds that could grift for Vox or BuzzFeed, have their woke agitprop indirectly funded by USAID or Soros, or be a diversity hire to write or direct an MCU film. Everyone just had to take or ignore the cultural slop from spent franchises or musical styles that shouldn’t have made it past Y2K.
Many Millennials have been sidelined or confined outside the Overton Window for the better part of a decade. Gen Z has no lack of creative energy. The best thing Millennials can do is try and help Gen Z where we can. Creativity done right is never a zero sum game, but one where everyone gains and is able to accomplish far more in the right collaborative environment. We really need to appreciate that Gen Z went through an ideologically programmed adolescence we can only begin to fathom. Just because someone is a default leftist doesn’t mean they organically came to those beliefs. Given a choice, they just may surprise us.
The Greater 2010s… The Obama Era… is finally, FINALLY, in the rear view mirror. As an elder millennial, I had the fortune to be exposed as a child to just how nice the United States could be in the 1990s. How well things functioned. That great cultural production could be taken for granted… We survived Y2K… but no one was looking out for what could come next.
9/11. Neocons purging anyone right leaning who dared to disagree with the latest, pointless war. Making real estate sales politically correct to the point it crashed the economy, cutting the legs out of a generational cohort just as they were entering their early career years. And then, finally, Obama. Hope! Change! Let’s make the country safe for woke neoliberalism, and while we’re at it, let’s neutralize the populist left by corralling them into a circular firing squad over never satiable identity politics and grievance. The Overton Window suddenly narrowed, bordered by razor wire quick to cut the heads off of anyone straying too close to the edge.
A cultural neutron bomb went off. Admittedly, some Millennials thrived. The kinds that could grift for Vox or BuzzFeed, have their woke agitprop indirectly funded by USAID or Soros, or be a diversity hire to write or direct an MCU film. Everyone just had to take or ignore the cultural slop from spent franchises or musical styles that shouldn’t have made it past Y2K.
Many Millennials have been sidelined or confined outside the Overton Window for the better part of a decade. Gen Z has no lack of creative energy. The best thing Millennials can do is try and help Gen Z where we can. Creativity done right is never a zero sum game, but one where everyone gains and is able to accomplish far more in the right collaborative environment. We really need to appreciate that Gen Z went through an ideologically programmed adolescence we can only begin to fathom. Just because someone is a default leftist doesn’t mean they organically came to those beliefs. Given a choice, they just may surprise us.
A new dawn really is here.
Truth. You speak truth. Why isn’t this an entire article, though?
I'll get it down on the idea list, thanks for the suggestion
Hegelian thought, "the rational alone is real", works only if you always look forward ignoring the irrational that's always nibbling at your ass.
Perhaps the Philosopher Queens can bring such into thesis, antithesis, and hence, in to synthesis. If so, such ain't Hegelian, praise Whoever.
Great interpretation and call to action.
communism is the dissolution of dis-trust...
(it's a brain's right hemisphere 'thought'. my brain's left hemisphere
is seriously trying to understand what i'm trying to tell myself. give
me Time...
At least you're thinking about it.